That pretty much eliminates museums.
What you’re describing is the difference between what’s supposed to happen vs. what often does happen - especially if you’re a person of color. That’s the unfortunate truth.
You’re right, not much you can do at the time but these situations are why you hire an attorney after the fact.
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I did. He told me that unless I was willing and able to take it up to the level of the state Supreme Court, there was little likelihood of a ruling in my favor. The incident happened in Alachua (sp?) FL. The arresting officer was the brother-in-law or some such of the judge who would hear my case.
Like I said, I was living in a van. I worked at a pizza shop. I didn’t have the means to take it up the chain. Maybe with the internet it’s easier for people of little means to follow through on stuff like this, but unfortunately I think not.
And to be clear, I think this situation would’ve ended far worse if I was not white. I count myself lucky, and that’s infuriating on several levels.
But the first video and the update were awesome 
I’m glad they included the officer’s response in the original. Thanks for posting.
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Sucks that you got some bad legal advice but at a purely practical level, it’s probably accurate unfortunately.
The reality is police operate with almost impunity so unless you’re willing to press your case to trial and challenge your unlawful search with expensive lawyers, the odds of actually winning for average schlubs like you and me are low.
The other reality is that the bar for probable cause during traffic stops is absurdly low. Cops abuse this all the time - calling in the K9 unit is by far the most common method of coercion to get you to agree to an otherwise unlawful search.
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They call in the dogs, then make the dogs lie.
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Wouldn’t that make it good legal advice?
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Are you referring to the cops?
I had a cop yell at me for making a legal left turn on a green light, because a guy coming in the opposite direction was making a right turn at the same time. Onto a six-lane, divided highway. I ended up in the left lane and he’d ended up in the right lane. So there was the middle lane between us. It was perfectly safe.
When he pulled up in back of me with his lights flashing, I immediately stopped in the left lane. (Neither side had room to stop other than in the traffic lane.) The cop yelled at me for that too. Seems to me it was safer than pulling over two lanes in traffic. The light had changed by this time, but in every lane cars were coming up to speed from a stop. It’s not like they would rear-end anyone in the left lane.
I’m white and this was in an affluent neighborhood. But the cop was young and I guess anxious to start pulling rank.
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What else would I be referring to in the context of this thread?
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I know we’re basically agreeing, but just want to make sure this part doesn’t get lost. I was totally willing to press my case to trial. I gladly spent a full day’s (pre-tax) wages on an attorney to defend what I know to be our legal rights.
I was, however, daunted by the idea that it would require taking it several layers up from that local court for me to have anything resembling a fair shot.
It’s not that people are unwilling to press their suit. It’s that the system is effed-up.
ETA: agreed. This is one of the most basic things we could fix.
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Honestly, I thought you were talking about the actual dogs in the canine units being liars. Which I also know to be true. At least, they are easily manipulated by their handlers 
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Yes.
As with so much else, the defining factor of the current era is the extension of the treatment that was previously reserved for America’s untermenschen to the previously-immune white middle class. American cops have been lying to send Black Americans into slavery from the moment that the Confederacy surrendered.
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Really? Yes and yes. Cops make the dogs “alert” whenever they’re feeling particularly officious, or if the people they’ve pulled over are not obviously white and monied.
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https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/c9e8d44e-0a3d-472e-bf69-0b357cfd66fd
(Don’t know why it’s not working, but clip from a favorite scene from Harold &Maude)
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Police brutality isn’t being shrugged off, except by the media, the protests are still ongoing and it will only take another victim to make it really explode.
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I remember in the 1980s, reading novels by Joseph Wambaugh, who had been an LA cop for something like 18 years. He wrote about how cops lied constantly, when testifying, when filling out arrest reports or reports of the results from searches, because they “knew” that they had to in order to get jail time for people they “knew” damn good and well were guilty and had to be taken off the street. They figured if they just stuck to the truth, the liberal softass pussies in the courts would get tender on the criminals, so they had to lie to add enough weight to have a better chance of getting the suspects jailed. They had to lie to make sure cases weren’t thrown out on little “technicalities” like lack of probable cause or having no physical evidence. It was always about how the cops figured they were the last line of defense, protecting America from the chaos of liberals and crime that only they could save us from. They were the only ones who really knew what was right and what was wrong and to defend society from hell itself they had to lie their asses off. And lawyers and judges knew it, but they had to go along with it, because there just wasn’t time to do things right, and they accepted any expedient that allowed them to grease cases through the system and cut into their backlog. And even back then, I couldn’t help but think if a “justice” system is built on accepting lies instead of truth, then it can’t possibly dispense actual justice. It’s nothing but a sham, a judicial theater done so people in charge can bloviate about how they’re trying to maintain law and order.
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Yeah, you’ll notice in that video, there’s only one cop so he doesn’t have a buddy to lie for him. And it’s in daylight, so anyone who passes could see something. Change the venue to late at night on a back road in South Carolina, and you’ll see something way different.
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Lie to get on a jury? Risky, but I’m glad of it.
When jury duty comes up everyone usually talks about their strategies to avoid being on a jury. Based on my experience I recommend not doing that. I know if I’m ever on trial, I’d like to have some happy mutants on the jury bench.
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I ended up de-selected the one time I’ve been called in.
“Would you say a cop is at least as honest as yourself or any of the potential jurors here?”
“I’d say a cop is no more honest than any lawyer, like yourself.”
“Your honor I’d like to voir dier this one.”
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Heck they don’t even have to be manipulated. All the handler has to do is say the dog alerted and instant search in most cases. For those not in the know how a dog alerts can be different things for different dogs. The dogs don’t always just sit when they find something. I was a K-9 Handler in the USAF.
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And they are allowed to lie while questioning you. This means that there is no point in making any deals without a lawyer.
I keep meaning to ask a cop questioning me whether he or she is allowed to lie. If they answer no then you know they just lied. If they say yes then at least there is hope that they could have some self awareness.
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